INFOTECH 221 – Marketing Concepts & Strategies with E-commerce

Report on Web Traffic Analysis and Measuring for Success

I. Definition of Web Traffic

a. Refers to amount of web users who visit a website
b. Measured in “visits” or “sessions”
c. Common way to measure an online business effectiveness at attracting an
audience

II. Why do we need analysis and measuring?

a. Prevent low traffic
b. Prevent negative feedback
c. Money

III. Topics Discussion

a. Obtaining Customer Data
i. Identify trouble pages – (You have an increase in visitors on your site, but
not an increase in conversions. Even though you’re getting more attention,
your profits still aren’t growing – and you have no idea why.) To find the
source of the issue, you should be looking at pages’ exit rates. High-exit
rate pages show you the place where your visitors decided not to become
customers. Maybe they can’t find your size chart, or maybe they think your
shipping is overpriced. In any case, the first key to discovering what made
them leave is in the place where they left from.
Discover why they’re leaving. (Imagine a sales rep sees a customer
walking out the door. At that point, it’s too late to find out why they’re leaving
and offer them what they need. But if you see a customer’s mouse moving
towards the “X” box in their browser,) you can intervene by running a quick
survey. Exit surveys allow you to target potential customers at the right
moment, but in order for them to work, you have to ask the right questions.
If you ask questions that are relevant to your site’s UX, you can figure out
specifically why customers are leaving, and give you the opportunity to offer
them last minute help before they go.

ii. Analyze traffic sources – Your traffic source (the way a visitor found your
page) is the reason someone is on your site, but it might also be the reason
why they’re leaving. Optimize search traffic.
 iii. Prevent abandoned shopping carts – Even though about 74% of all
shopping carts are abandoned, 63% of abandoned shopping cart
merchandise is recoverable – because anyone who puts something in their
shopping cart inherently has the desire to buy it. They’re interested in your
product, but they might be derailed by shipping costs, second thoughts, or
wanting to look for a better price elsewhere. You can’t avoid abandoned
shopping carts altogether, but you can optimize your user experience to
turn some of those clicks into conversions — and prevent customers from
leaking out of your purchasing pipeline. Offer a coupon code.

b. Essential Non-financial Metrics

i. Visitors – The number of visitors to your site will give you a general idea of
how well you’re getting the word out about your business.

ii. Page Views – Looking at page views can tell you what content on your site
is the most popular. If you notice that certain pages are very popular with
visitors, think about why that might be the case and use that same strategy
for pages that may not be drawing as many views.

iii. Referring Sites – Looking at referring sites will give you an excellent
snapshot of the type of people who are visiting your site. For example, if
you sell kitchen gadgets and you notice that one of your top referring sites
is a recipe site, then you know that visitors from that site are in your target
audience. Referring sites are also useful in helping you boost traffic,
especially for small business owners. Many small businesses partner with
business associations to generate more visits. Using an analytics tool, you
can see which partnerships are bringing in the most visitors and invest
more in those that provide better results.

iv. Bounce Rate / Exit Pages – A bounce rate measures something different
than an exit page, but both can give you important insights into why people
are leaving your site. In most analytics programs, a “bounce” is recorded
when a person visits and leaves within a second or two, usually before the
page is even done loading. Top exit pages show you which pages people
visit immediately before they leave. If the page contains a “thank you”
message after a customer places an order, a high exit or bounce rate would
be expected. However, if your product pages are some of your top exit
pages, it may be because your descriptions are unclear, or maybe your
prices are too high.
 v. Keywords and Phrases – Keywords and phrases let you know what terms
people are using to find your site in search engines like Google and Yahoo.
This can give you some idea of how to add different content to appeal to
even more customers. For example, if you are a florist and many people
find your web site by typing in “flowers for Mother’s Day,” that’s perfect.
However, you can also consider adding content to your site about buying
flowers for anniversaries that will help your site rank highly when people
search for “flowers for anniversaries.”

(Note: All can be based from Google Analytics)

c. Cost of Online Marketing

i. “How much does it cost?” – It depends. Online advertising covers a very
wide range of possibilities, including:
1. Search Engine Optimization
2. Pay-Per-Click
3. E-mail Marketing
4. Content Marketing
5. Social Media Marketing
6. Display Advertisements
For example, if you’re an ecommerce site, PPC ads for specific product names are
typically a good option. But if you’re a B2B software provider, these short ads won’t
provide enough information, and a content marketing strategy is a much better
choice.